Quote from: Jackalope;264861Anarchonistic names truly bug the living shit out of me.  God I hate 'em.  And, as you can imagine, I'm not particularly good at hiding my disgust.  So of course, I always end up with at least one player who just bugs the shit out of me with goofy names.

In the Castle Greyhawk campaign I recently quit, one of the player has a character named Dr. Zaius.  The character is a Vanaran, a monkey-man.  That kind of stuff drives me crazy.

One of my players in my high-school game tried to name every single character he made for two years "Kunta Kintae," after the character from Roots.  When he suggested the name for a Tri-keen in my Dark Sun campaign I just about smacked him.

In my current campaign, I'm down to two players, having lost one to work schedules and having recently kicked the other out for finally annoying me too much.  But back when it was four players, I was blessed with four anarchonistic names of varying obnoxiousness.

If all four of them had names like this, why is this a story about them refusing to play properly, and not a story about you refusing to play properly?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;265089Maybe so. But sometimes, being historically accurate is not fun, and is just an excuse for the GM to fuck with you, or parade his little pet issues before you.

Yeah, it never seems to be the other way. Like you never hear "OK, you're fighter aces, but in social situations you're pathetically dependent on your wives - historical accuracy!", or "OK, you're all swaggering gauchos, but you're terrified of displeasing your mothers - historical accuracy!"

Quote from: Age of Fable;265205If all four of them had names like this, why is this a story about them refusing to play properly, and not a story about you refusing to play properly?

No one said anything about playing properly.  I just said it bugged the shit out of me.  But clearly not enough for me to tell my players how to play the game.

QuoteThat must be why Israel's lost all of its wars.

If you're talking about the modern Israeli Defense Force, then...what the hell does that have to do with anything?  Medieval armies are NOTHING like modern armies.  Are you talking about ancient Israel?  Because I'm pretty sure the ancient Israeli's didn't use women soldiers.

Also, the primary reason women can serve in the field with men in the modern era is birth control.  Because seriously, if you think you can put men and women into close quarters and stressful situations and nobody is gonna have sex, then you really don't know much about people.

Anachronisms are great as long as historical accuracy isn't a big deal in the game to begin with.

As for naming conventions... well, when the PCs take on hirelings, I always give them names like "Mick and Keith," "John, Paul, George, and Ringo," things like that. Sure, it takes away from the "this is a serious setting with serious things happening," but hell, I'm going to ambush them with orcs in five minutes, and at least the people at the table remember their hirelings' names instead of just calling them, "Those guys."

I often use "normal" names for everyday people in the setting... and then use generic fantasy names ("I am... Mithralia!") for NPC adventurer types.

Nobody remembers "serious" names anyway.

Quote from: Jackalope;265211If you're talking about the modern Israeli Defense Force, then...what the hell does that have to do with anything?  Medieval armies are NOTHING like modern armies.  Are you talking about ancient Israel?  Because I'm pretty sure the ancient Israeli's didn't use women soldiers.

Actually there is one precedent: the Hussite armies of the early 15th Century (from what is now the Czech Republic). They included sizeable numbers of women and still managed to win. However there are reasons:
1. They were ultra-religious fanatics. Getting someone pregnant would mean serious trouble.
2. The rigid application of a set of Regulations (that amongst other things banned prostitutes).
3. Many of the women were already married and would essentially serve as camp followers (washing/cleaning/cooking) before joining the battle line.
4. They sure as hell didn't make up 50% of the army.

An medieval style army with female soldiers is acceptable to me, provided there is reason and thought behind it. And not just chainmail-bikinis-FTW.

Anachronisms depend on the game played. I've no worries about it in Pulp or pulp style historical games (Pendragon is a good example). On the other hand if someone is trying to sell me on a historical game I expect certain amounts of accuracy.

Quote from: Age of Fable;265201That must be why Israel's lost all of its wars.

Women in combat roles in Isreal is a relativly new thing and is rather limited. Nothing like the 50% Jack mentioned.

In any case, "During Operation Desert Storm, for example, enlisted women in the Navy were unavailable for overseas deployment nearly four times more often than men. At any given time, between 8 and 10 percent of women in the Navy are pregnant;10 for the Army, the figure is 10 to 15 percent." [1]

"On one support ship during Operation Desert Storm, 36 of the 360 women on board-ten percent-became pregnant. In a Roper survey conducted during the Gulf War, 64 percent of military personnel surveyed reported that sexual activity had taken place in their unit."[1]

"For example, it is a common misperception that Israel allows women in combat units. In fact, women have been barred from combat in Israel since 1950, when a review of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War showed how harmful their presence could be. The study revealed that men tried to protect and assist women rather than continue their attack. As a result, they not only put their own lives in greater danger, but also jeopardized the survival of the entire unit. The study further revealed that unit morale was dam- aged when men saw women killed and maimed on the battlefield."[1]

Quote from: One Horse Town;264862The most omnipresent anachronism i can think of in fantasy gaming is the projection of current day social mores onto a medieval or dark age setting. I have no problem with that, as it promotes inclusive gaming, but it's nearly always there - unspoken, at least.

What amuses me about games is how selective this often is.  I've played with groups which will spend hours arguing about details of military history or period specific weaponry in Pendragon or Ars Magica only to prove themselves totally ignorant of the actual social mores or realities of medieval or dark age society.

I remember playing with a group the spent two hours arguing about the price of slaves in 12th century constantinople at the end of two sessions of travelling through Russian and Hungarian peasant villages staying in sixteenth century (generic fantasy) tudor inns the whole time.

If you're going to be pedantic, then at least be consistent about it.

Quote from: Vulgarian;265279What amuses me about games is how selective this often is.  I've played with groups which will spend hours arguing about details of military history or period specific weaponry in Pendragon or Ars Magica only to prove themselves totally ignorant of the actual social mores or realities of medieval or dark age society.

Ah, but did they bring the IDF into it?

It only matters when you have a mixing of extreme RP styles. The  "Serious Role-Player" STOP FUCKING AROUND AND LETS HAVE FUN and the "Wacky Fun Role-Player" Wooo I'm going to get drunk, hit on the Queen and start a fight in the royal court.

The Serious role-player will play Sir Brisbane Caviler of the Rose, while the wacky fun guy will play Thog the wenching fur thong wearing barbarian. I have found that the two rarely mix well together.

Quote from: RockViper;265299It only matters when you have a mixing of extreme RP styles. The  "Serious Role-Player" STOP FUCKING AROUND AND LETS HAVE FUN and the "Wacky Fun Role-Player" Wooo I'm going to get drunk, hit on the Queen and start a fight in the royal court.

The Serious role-player will play Sir Brisbane Caviler of the Rose, while the wacky fun guy will play Thog the wenching fur thong wearing barbarian. I have found that the two rarely mix well together.

True.  I can see how sir Brisbane's antics might totally disrupt Thog's suspension of disbelief there.

Anachroisms are okay, ONLY IF THEY DON'T DETRACT FROM THE GAME

I relented in the Nippon! game, and we have Sushi, True Noh, and a few other late period Japanese inventions, in a game that is clearly in the early part of the feudal period.

The same with Ninjas. The players expected it.They were constantly looking for them. They were planning for them. They were mentioning them. The players really wanted them. To their mind, you couldn't have a Japanese fantasy game without them.  So late in the campaign cycle, we had ninjas *sigh* ninjas in black pajamas (which they never wore in the real world, and if they did not until 1600).

Players sometimes do things that are a bit out of time. A little modern sensability seems to creep into their characters. As long as they don't take things too far, it seems to work. (You own slaves. You have a plantation based on them. You will be ruined if you free them all now and send them north.  ... Did you look at your greedy disads?... Oh, I thought so. Maybe set it up in your will to free them all after. )

Aside: The game we play, my game design, has experience based on five areas. There is an optional sixth - Genre Compliance. Your eps fluxed some if you were "in the zone" or just gaming along without a clue.  No, you are a samurai... you are not haggling with the merchant.. it is benieth you. You want to do it anyways.. okay... lose some status and some eps).  The system also uses player points. These are awards for "good play". These little pavlovian treats help teach my players appropriate actions as they strove for those little tokens (so they could reroll things or convert them to eps).  Players that were anachronistic or not in genre would find themselves at a disadvatange. So even the slowest of them finally caught on that "acting rightly" was a good thing.

These anachronisms did not destory the campaign. Nor did take away from the game. (TO be honest, the Ninjas helped me clean up plot issue that neatly came together..).  I met players expectations. I did not destroy anyone's level of belief. People sometimes needed a little shepherding, but it was all fine. So they can be okay.

So, stupid names?  Never would of gotten past character generation for me.  My players know I am pretty serious about character creation. We have pushed off an entire campaign for three sessions because the players wouldn't buckled down and build characters that matched the world and campaign being played.  That was three sessions we would of been playing that we spent in character creation. (One was planned, to be fair).  They whined. They huffed. They realized either "fit the world pack, with its setting information", have MoonHunter make up another campaign (which is what Moon started doing at the begining of session 3. I turned on a movie that we could watch, just so they would have something to do. They caught the hint), or "never play again".  After they decided they would like to play the game, they build characters.  

Stupid character histories, illogical elements, things out of place (and sometimes the mechanics related to them - the winner was berserk at the sight of all blood for a doctor/ surgeon), are all things that needed to be sorted out at character creation.

Moon is one who lives by tip 3 "If you have any doubts and let it into your game, you will have to deal with the inevitable consequences."
If you have any questions or doubts about a character (or other game element), don't let it in. It will only lead to heart ache later. (See Moon's
Top tips, these are from 2005  http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1269 )  So most people restrict this to the mechanics. They should not. They should continue on and take it to the story/ backstory elements of the characters and campaign (See tip 5 in that same set).

Quote from: One Horse Town;264850Are there any examples in games that you can think of that really jar with you?

One that I'm wrestling with as I prepare for a possible Flashing Blades campaign is disease.

I considered placing an adventure in a town suffering through an outbreak of the plague and another with the characters exploring in Africa. In both instances the characters should be exposed to potentially deadly diseases; for example, the rate of death among Europeans from malaria and trypanosomiasis was staggering, and to represent this accurately would likely result in several character deaths. However, many gamers would consider this a total buzz-kill in a swashbuckling game.

I haven't reached any conclusions on how to handle this yet.